


The Other Path

by icepixie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-01
Updated: 2003-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icepixie/pseuds/icepixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A what-if for "Audrey Pauley." John choses the other path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Path

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue taken from "Audrey Pauley."

"There's dog people and there's cat people. You are a dog person, John," she said, a smile gracing her lips at the absurdity of his confession that he was thinking of getting a cat.

"How do you figure?" he asked, genuinely curious.

She chuckled, then replied, "You're faithful, you're dependable, you're without guile. You're very comfortable to be around." He smiled at her words. She thought he was comfortable to be around? Not exactly poetry, but he appreciated the sentiment more than he would any pretty words.

"So why a cat?" Monica continued.

John replied quickly. He'd spent some time thinking about this. "Low maintenance. They don't expect much from you, so you can't disappoint 'em." A dog would look up at him with those adoring eyes, just like Luke sometimes did when he was real little, when his dad was the center of his universe...

"I don't see you ever disappointing anyone, John." She met his eyes, and time stopped.

This was one of those rare moments, John realized, where there were two courses of action open to him and he could see both very clearly. If he followed one course, he would tell himself that he wasn't ready for what Monica was offering, thank her for the ride, tell her goodnight, and disappear into his house, where he would curse himself for a coward over another bottle or two of beer. If he followed the other, he would lean over the space between his seat and hers and kiss her. He wasn't sure what would happen after that, but he thought that, unless he was gravely mistaken, it would be good.

As he contemplated these two paths, time stretched like a rubber band being pulled at both ends before finally popping back with a _snap_. He noticed that Monica was looking at him with a curious expression, and he knew she was about to ask him if something was wrong.

John Doggett chose his path.

He reached across the air dividing him from Monica and cupped her cheek in his hand, then touched his lips to hers. The sweetness of it was something he hadn't felt in a long time. She tasted of cinnamon and nutmeg, and traces of the beer she had drunk earlier, and he would have gulped greedily except he didn't want to frighten her by springing too much on her at once.

They pulled apart, finally, his hand lingering in a caress over her cheek and down the line of her jaw before falling to rest on the slightly scratchy material of the SUV seat. John felt his stomach flip over at the half-smile he saw on Monica's mouth and the crinkles around her eyes, and at the knowledge that they were just for him. Impulsively, he grabbed her hand. "You wanna come in?" he asked.

Monica's smile grew wider. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

They were on the couch, John having been divested of his tie and his shirt unbuttoned most of the way, Monica with her hair considerably more mussed than it had been and her shirt practically off her shoulders, when she abruptly broke away from their attempt at beating the world record for the longest time spent without surfacing for air.

John's hands slid down from her face to rest on her shoulders. "Monica? Somethin' wrong?"

Monica's brow furrowed and she cocked her head. "Did you just...feel something?"

"Feel somethin'?" He gave her a quizzical look. "Like what?"

She bit her lip and looked down for a moment, wondering how to describe it. "I don't know...it was like a little earthquake, or one of those aftershocks when a construction crew blows up something nearby, except I didn't _feel_ it physically. It was like it happened in my mind." She returned her gaze to John's face.

Slowly, he shook his head. "No...I didn't feel anything." Awkwardly, he continued, "Do you wanna leave, or...?"

She shook her head and cut him off. "No, no. It was probably nothing." She smiled at him and leaned forward to continue the kiss she had interrupted. The feeling still bothered her somewhere deep inside, but it was soon pushed aside to make room for the sensations and memories that were being created by John's lips on hers and his hands on her body. Tonight not the time not for an uneasy sensation she couldn't explain. It was instead a night for magic.

* * *

Six months later, they were all but living together. Monica spent almost every night at John's house, and had begun leaving more than a few personal effects there. John had adopted a yellow lab from the pound, who, after much input from and discussion with Monica, he'd named Sparky. Both John and Monica found that this path was every bit as good as John had thought it would be that night she had driven him home.

John scanned the headlines as he brought in the paper on a sunny Tuesday morning. He reached down to absently pat Sparky's head as he took in the headline of the column on the far right: "'Dr. Death' arrested; pleads guilty."

Monica, who always got up earlier than him, had already made them toast and scrambled eggs. John kissed her good morning for the second time that day, and set the paper down where they could both read the front page as they ate breakfast.

"You see that story about Dr. Preijers?" John asked after a few minutes.

"Yeah," Monica replied. She sighed. "Even with all we've seen, it's still hard to even think about how someone could get off on doing something like that."

"Mmm," John agreed. "God, he killed twelve people before someone figured out what was happenin'. What those families must be goin' through..." He trailed off, anger rising at the man he'd never met.

They shared a few more minutes in silence as they finished their meal. John then cleared away the plates while Monica hunted for her purse. A bit later, they would head off to the basement of the Hoover building and spend the day catching up on paperwork. Thoughts would flit through their minds, but none of them would be of a doctor who until recently had worked at St. Mary's Hospital. Their paths had led them elsewhere.


End file.
